Letter to the editor: Question 2 on Portland ballot is simply bad business

Question 2 on Portland’s ballot this year is bad for the city and its economy.

If successful, Question 2 will create new hurdles for businesses looking to grow and create jobs in Portland, and it will immediately cost the city over $200 million in lost economic activity – and that’s just for one project.

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markusinger

Just as I suspected—another out of town voice telling us how to run our city. No wonder that almost all of the folks pushing the NO vote on line use fake screen names…

Dominic Leo

It’s the real names you and you upscale pinky pointing friends will need to worry about when SOP gets ethered at the polls in November. All you do is whine about every project proposed in city. Another one who thinks munjoy was discovered with a bunch of buildings on it. It was a giant open field that got a thousand homes, roads, and sidewalks put on it making it one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the state. Now on a hill where 90% of the homes obstruct a view, you wanna fight for the ones on the the end who obstruct the most.

Not a lot of people worked harder than my family who resided on lower end of munjoy and not once do I ever remember any of them crying about not seeing a sliver of ocean.

jbs01

I think if you look at the % of comments on either side that use pseudonyms, the Yes side does not look so good.

There are 2-3 commenters who anonymously slog into the fray and doggedly flog arguments about self-ishness (without any sense of irony apparently) and WalMart is coming (without understanding that the referendum does nothing to prevent a Walmart or perhaps they know that and just hope that folks won’t notice.)

Oh well, anonymity appears to be enjoyed by both sides… and this commenter.

The real test should be the degree to which folks engage in factual discussion that is passionate but does not cross the boundary into incivility or factually misleading.

All right, I admit to being an out-of-towner… I’m in Portland every summer and I sincerely hope to move to this wonderful city in the near future. I love this town! And, I always use my real name… I’m committed to using logic, reason, and my understanding of urban planning to comment on the wretched selfishness of the Question 2 sponsors. It’s simply a very bad idea.

yathink2011

So Mark O’Reilly is a fake name? The best solution would be to put up a fence and keep everyone out of Portland. But in fairness, you should also give advance notice to the people who want to leave before the fence goes up.

Mainer

Respectfully, I’m baffled by your comment. The letter is authored by Michael P. O’Reilly of MEREDA. I’ll assume you have heard of MEREDA.

yathink2011

I was baffled by the first comment that said everyone uses fake names. That’s why I asked.

Mainer

I see now, apologies for my misunderstanding as well.

James Oullette

A different way to approach this would be to enact it for two year increments so that it would need to be voter renewed. When development gets too aggressive, the voters could step in to cool it down and when development becomes stagnant the voters could step in to loosen it up.

A yes vote would be good for the metro area as it would spur development in SoPo or Westbrook. A yes vote would tip the balance of property values more heavily toward those with views worth protecting. Properties without views would fall in value as their development potential decreases. Overall though values would probably increase.

A no vote would be the more equitable choice. This referendum is designed to benefit a specific class of Portland residents

The Portland peninsula is a unique little city and we should be careful how we develop it.

Mainer

As someone who started focusing on this issue late in the game, I was interested in looking at the endorsements on either side. I may have missed some but so far, endorsing the NO vote on 2: GrowSmart Maine, Mayor Brennan, Candidate Ethan Strimling, Portland Society for Architecture, the Chair of the Portland Housing Authority, most, if not all, of the seated council and the current city council candidates, Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce , Portland Community Chamber, Maine Commercial Association of Realtors, Greater Portland Board of Realtors, MEREDA. In favor of the referendum is the Green Party, and a couple of businesses, which coincidentally happened to be owned by people who live on Fore Street – Nine Stones and Angela Adams. When an organization endorses one side or the other, the entire Board would usually review the issue at hand, and then they vote on it. So with that said, it’s pretty obvious that the leaders in the Portland community are essentially unanimously opposed to this referendum and support a NO on 2 vote. That’s pretty telling.

Well done! I’ve been following the NO endorsements but have been too lazy to compile them all. Very telling that almost no organizations have supported the selfish and short-sighted NIMBY-ism of the Question 2 supporters.